As the Force Academy has changed over the years, we have not particularly changed to take advantage of the new technologies in internet websites and social media. Last year, we decided to make the year 2020 a year of improvements in the services and features we have available to our Force community.
The Community Surveys and extensive feedback from the FA members have guided the development of FA2020, a new main website developed in the popular content management system Joomla. We are still in the evaluation and tweaking phase of that site, but once it passes muster it will replace the WordPress site you see when you go directly to www.forceacademy.us.
This process is nearing the time when users will start noticing some disruption, most notably a password reset for Academy users. Those users have been notified to expect this coming. The reason for the reset is not based on any security problem. It is part of the synchronization process between the Academy software and the FA2020 software; this will result in our members only having to remember one username and password across the site.
I know, right?
Aside from this golden era of not having to login separately to the Academy and the forums and such, we are very excited by the coming changes. Some of the new features are:
- Seamless integration between the Academy and the rest of the site. Register on the main site and you are in the Academy and can register for courses if you like.
- Academy course information seamlessly in your Force Academy site experience.
- New special interest groups designed like popular social media sites like Facebook. Post on your wall, comment on others, upload and enjoy photos and videos, be notified of events you can join into, and more.
- A better library of Force writings by our community integrated into the site. We intend to make it easier for people who write their thoughts on the Force to be added to a growing corpus of writings.
- Improved discussion forums. Still the same concept, but no separate login. Also better viewing on mobile devices. More on the forum migration in a later post.
There may be some bumps in the road, but we’re working hard and cautiously to reduce those. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to hop into our Discord and ask in the #fa2020 channel, or email me at satelle ATremoveAT gmail.com. Thank you for your patience as we undergo this project.